


Lost Identity

by yourofficialcertifieddumbass



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Basically just posting this because I think it's gonna turn out pretty cool, Betrayal, Explicit Language, F/M, Feels, How Do I Tag, Idiots in Love, Pining, Slow Burn, Spies in training, Spy!Calum, Spy!OFC, maybe some fluff, sarcastic assholes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 22:01:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20124535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourofficialcertifieddumbass/pseuds/yourofficialcertifieddumbass
Summary: This is the only life that Autumn Young has ever known. Working as a spy for an organization by the name of CHIPA, she fights against international threats for the safety of the world. When her long-term work partner, Calum Hood, leaves the organization in hopes of starting a normal life, things start to go south. Autumn keeps up with her ex-partner and how his life is going while she continues her spy work.When a well-known Russian gang who has it out for the two agents attacks a 5SOS concert, the two are forced back together to continue their last mission: taking down the boss, Vincent Halkrof, once and for all. Autumn reluctantly brings all four of the boys with her to protect them, but things go wrong quickly. With CHIPA and Halkrof on their tails, Autumn has to assemble a team of boy band members in hopes of taking down these bad guys before things get even worse.





	1. The Night Where It All Went To Shit

With only a few hours before the first show of the ‘Easier’ tour, the boys of 5 Seconds of Summer were jamming out backstage, preparing and hyping themselves up for the show tonight. The boys were all hanging out in a little studio area backstage with a cute living area with a couch, a television equipped with Michael’s video games, and a mini-fridge full of foods and drinks meant to ‘improve their vocal cords’ as their manager told them. Ashton was arguing with Kaykay on the couch over something stupid like normal, Luke was doing vocal warmups, and Michael was challenging Calum to the fourth victory royale of the day. Calum didn’t know why he kept playing against his bandmate since he wasn’t the best winner. Add onto that the fact that he won  _ every time _ .

The boys’ managers were rushing around trying to make last-minute preparations, and they tried to keep them out of it, at least for the time being. It became almost tradition for them to chill out and do whatever they wanted just before showtime. It was kind of like a cooldown period from all the stress of the tour, the promos, and the meet and greets.

“Hey Cal,” Ashton paused his argument with his girlfriend at the sound of Calum’s phone ringing on the arm of the couch.

“Hold on a second, Ash, I’ve almost got him this time,” the dark-haired boy insisted, leaning towards the television and vigorously pressing the buttons on his controller, as if that would improve his skill. Michael on the other hand was completely relaxed as he killed Calum’s avatar with just two shots, “bullshit!” he shouted, throwing his controlled down on the floor, “what do you want?” he turned around to face Ashton, who sat just behind him.

“You’ve got a blocked number calling you,” Calum furrowed his eyebrows and made grabby fingers for the phone. Ashton tossed it to him. He assessed the screen, seeing that it was indeed a blocked number, then clicked the green button.

“Hello?” he answered, expecting to get some telemarketer pitch about free car insurance or something. What came instead was quite different.

“ _ Calum _ ?” the voice was feminine and spoke in a hushed tone. It was familiar, “ _ Calum it’s Autumn. _ ” He blinked, taking a second to realize who was on the other side of the phone.

“I’m gonna take this,” he pulled the phone away from his face to tell the guys, then stood up and walked out of the backstage studio room. He pushed open the large metal door labeled ‘tour bus lot,’ then leaned against the brick wall. “Autumn, I told you not to contact me anymore,” he copied her quiet voice. He looked up and down the lot, the fluorescent light above the door only doing so much in the darkness of the parking lot.

“ _ I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t important, _ ” she responded simply.

“No, Autumn, you don’t understand. I got out of that life. I don’t care about some d-list shoplifter in New York or whatever you have for me.” Calum sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Suddenly he got the strange feeling that someone was watching him, but he brushed it off as nerves for the show.

“ _ Please, Cal, listen to me- _ ”

“I have my own important thing happening tonight. I can’t just-” a loud crash from the darkest part of the parking lot cut him off.

“ _ What was that? _ ”

“I don’t know, probably some raccoons knocking over trash cans. Autumn, I’m out. End of discussion,” with that, he pulled the phone away from his ear.

“ _ Calum, Calum wait! _ ” her voice was muffled now so far from his ear. He ended the call and shook his head, then walked back inside to find Luke now playing with Michael and the happy couple arguing again.

“What was that about?” Luke asked, seeing his bandmate entering the room, “Ash said you got a call from a blocked number.” Calum waved him off.

“Telemarketer. I kept them on the line to take my number off their list.” He sat down on the floor beside the boys and watched as Michael annihilated Luke in the game, quite mercilessly in Calum’s eyes. They relaxed for about an hour before Ashton got tired of the incessant arguing, then stood up and lazily opened the fridge to rifle through the contents. Kaykay excused herself from backstage, explaining that Sierra and Crystal were getting dinner before the show. She kissed Ashton goodbye, wished them all good luck, then left the arena.

“They didn’t give us any beer,” the redhead complained, grabbing a water bottle and collapsing onto the couch. “I vote that the next time we tour, we get to pick our snacks and drinks,” everyone agreed quickly.

“We don’t even get name brand snacks,” Luke pulled out a bag of chips in a bright blue bag and ‘cheddar cheese tortilla chips!’ written on it in white letters, “what’s it take for a man to get some goddamn Doritos?” he chucked the chips towards the fridge, then fell back to lay on the floor in despair. Just then, Calum’s phone started ringing for the third time in the past hour. He declined the blocked number again, earning some confused glances from his friends.

“That’s a pretty determined telemarketer,” Michael incited as he shut his game down and put it away. “Is there something you’re not telling us, Cal?” he shook his head and flipped his phone face down on the rug. The boys furrowed their eyebrows at him, but let it go for the time being. “Alright fuckers, soundcheck starts in ten and I haven’t even looked at my guitar yet,” Michael stood up from the floor and straightened out his clothes.

“Mike’s right,” Luke agreed, standing up as well and stretched out his limbs. “Let’s go entertain those people who paid extra to see us practice,” he offered a hand to Calum and pulled him up.

“I swear to god,” Calum complained at his ringtone going off yet again. Before he could grab it off the floor, Ashton snagged it and held it away from him.

“Tell us what’s going on or I answer it,” Calum bit his tongue and held his hand out for the phone, which continued to ring with the traditional iphone song. He couldn’t tell them the truth as much as he wanted to, so he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“It’s my ex. She wants to get back together, and I don’t,” Ashton nodded slowly.

“What’s her name?”  _ Shit. Come up with something fast _ . Calum glanced at the television, which was now playing Spongebob with no volume.

“Sandy,” he tried to grab the phone, but Ashton clicked the answer button and held it to his ear.

“Hey there Sandy, my boy Cal doesn’t want to get back together with you. If you’d kindly stop calling him, he might send you a muffin basket once we’re done with our tour. Thanks!”

“Damn it, Ash!” he grabbed the phone, ignoring the snickers behind him, “I gave you my answer, now stop calling this number.”

“ _ Calum you don’t understand what’s at stake here! _ ” he hung up the phone and muted it, then shoved it in his pocket.

“Problem solved,” Ashton said smugly before grabbing his drumsticks from the couch and heading out towards the main stage. Calum followed alongside Luke and Michael. He expected them to ask questions, but his seriously pissed off demeanor must have discouraged that.

Soundcheck went great. Seeing the fans that came out to see them practice made him smile, and the energy from the crowd just pumped him up in general. Whether or not he got any more calls, he didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t care. Soon enough, soundcheck was over and they got to answer questions for the last twenty minutes before they had to go get ready for the show. The questions were generic: who’s your inspiration, what’s your favorite part about performing, what’s your favorite color, etc.

With the rage from earlier, Calum had been playing his bass pretty aggressively and found himself with thin cuts on his fingertips from the strings. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to, but it was still irritating. After getting all dressed up in their performance clothes, which ended up being pretty comfortable unlike normal.

“So, did you get any more calls from Sandy?” Michael slid up behind Calum in a swivel chair, looking at him in the mirror while the hair lady ran her hands through his hair, which was starting to grow back in multiple directions.

“Who the hell is - oh!” Michael questioned his moment of confusion, but let it go. He pulled out his phone to see that he had zero missed calls. “Nope. Looks like Ash set her straight,” he shrugged and shoved his phone back into his pocket. “You excited for tonight?” he asked, desperately trying to change the subject.

“‘Course I am. Now tell me about this Sandy chick.” Calum rolled his eyes and thanked the hair lady when she finished. He waited until she was far enough away to answer him.

“That my friend, is a long story. One that I really don’t want to get into ever again.”

“Come on, Cal.”

“Sandy,” he couldn’t help but smirk, “she’s a great girl. Literally all I want in a girlfriend,” he paused, trying to find the right way to word this, “she lives a life that I can’t take part in.” Michael nodded for him to continue, “I don’t know man, she’s also super stubborn and a total ass sometimes,” the guitarist laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Do what you think is best for you man, but is she kinda hot though?” he said with a smirk.

“Shut up, Michael,” he punched him in the arm and laughed with him, grabbing the attention of both Luke and Ashton, who were also being spiffed up by the team.

“Are you boys ready for the first show of the tour!?” Ashton exclaimed, jumping onto the both of them and being closely followed by Luke, who was also jumping with excitement. The more time went by, the more cheers they could hear from the growing audience. “We’re gonna blow their minds!” he drummed his hands on the vanity in front of them. This was definitely going to be an interesting show.


	2. Brace For Impact

The boys were practically jumping out of their skin by the time they could actually start the show. The stage crew got irritated as they tried to equip them while they were so hyped up and could hardly stand still. Just as they were about to go on, Calum’s phone started vibrating. He bit his tongue to see that the blocked number was calling him again.

“Unbelievable,” he shook his head and declined it for the final time, then powered his phone off completely and slipped it into his pocket. “You guys ready?” he asked his bandmates, who were laughing excitedly. “Let’s go, then.”

They opened up the show with ‘Easier.’ It was a beautiful set-up. The stage was dark and it was covered in blue lights. Each of the guys performed in front of their personalized symbols and they were so passionate about it that it was emotional.

Things went to hell in practically no time. Halfway through the song, things started to go wrong. The sound started to go wonky, which should have been controlled by their sound guys, but it was almost like they’d just stopped. Around the same time, the spotlights stopped following them around the stage and remained in one place. Luke glanced at Calum, silently asking what was going on. He could only offer a shrug in response. Stuff like that went on throughout the rest of the song, until the very end where things got much worse.

Gunshots rang throughout the building, followed by the shouting of commands in another language. Calum felt his stomach drop at the words they spoke and froze, just standing on stage.  _ No, no, no, no. This can’t be happening _ .

“ _ Everybody on the ground! Nobody needs to get hurt! Give us Calum Hood! _ ” their bodyguards had been shot, and now lay dead at the foot of the stage while everyone in attendance was crouched low to the ground. The shooters were the only ones standing up, holding their guns pointed and ready to shoot as they surveyed the crowd for Calum.

“Cal, get back here!” he heard Ashton whisper-yell at him from his drum set further back on the stage. Luke and Michael had dropped their instruments and stood with Ashton now. Why hadn’t their bodyguards from backstage come to get them? “We have a drill for this, we gotta go,” he stood up from his seat behind the drums and ran towards him. Calum couldn’t have put money on what happened after that.

“ _ Hey! _ ” with another sharp crack of a gunshot, Calum had to jump to catch Ashton before he hit the ground. People screamed, only upsetting the shooters more.

“No, no, no, no,” he muttered under his breath as he tried to find out where he’d been shot. He breathed again when he saw the hole in his jacket smack dab in the middle of his shoulder. “You’re gonna be fine, Ash,” he told him, only earning a weak nod in response. Before he could do anything, another gunshot rang through the building, but this time, one of the shooters fell to the ground.

“Holy shit,” he heard Ashton whisper, then followed his eyes to the backstage entrance. Standing there was a woman with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore black leather and had tactical armour around her stomach, forearms, and calves. Strapped to her thigh was a gun holster, but she held the gun out in front of herself. She shot down two more shooters around the room before she made it to center stage with Calum and Ashton.

She hissed something under her breath as she pulled a gun from her other holster and tossed it to Calum. She knelt down beside Ashton and pushed Calum aside. “All the ones backstage are dead. We’ll take care of the ones out here, alright? You take your friends out back and get in the backseat of the black car.” Ashton took a second to respond, glanced at Calum, back to the girl, then nodded. “Put pressure on your shoulder to stop the bleeding. We’ll be there in five minutes.” She added quickly.

“What about Cal?”

“He’s staying to help me. Now go, your window’s closing.”

Ashton stood from the ground, holding his shoulder in his hand, then staggered over to the other two. He didn’t let Luke and Michael hesitate and pushed them backstage, hopefully making it to the parking lot. Three more shooters were running up towards the stage, but the woman was focused on the hundreds of people still on the ground.

“You get the shooters, I’ll get the people out.”

“Just like old times, huh?” she scoffed and shook her head disapprovingly then jumped into the crowd. She ran towards the back doors of the arena, finding them held shut by another shooter. This one was  _ gigantic _ and he had a machine gun strapped to his arm. Still no body armour though. What a shame. She smirked to herself and shot him twice right between the eyes. She only prayed that there weren’t any more behind the door. Thankfully, there weren’t.

“Let’s go guys, come on,” she ushered out the concert goers, getting a few thanks as they rushed out. “I know, just go, come on.” She glanced up to the stage to see Calum had dealt with the three shooters from the start, but at least six more were rushing towards the stage, “shit,” she muttered, “keep going guys.” She managed to tap two of the guys in the back, but her gun halted before she could shoot the others.

“Damn it!” Calum gasped when his own gun ran out of bullets. He tucked the empty weapon into his waistband and clenched his fists.

“There’s no time for this!” she jumped up on stage and pulled him with her backstage. All the concert goers had gotten out, and there was little time left.

“What the hell, we could’ve taken them!”

“You’ll thank me for this, asshole!” she ran them through all the equipment and avoided the stiff bodies of the crew that was meant to be controlling the show. It almost broke Calum to see them all dead. They were his friends and they didn’t deserve this. They crashed through the back door, finding Ashton, Michael, and Luke all in the backseat of the small black car in the parking lot. “You’re shotgun,” she said quickly. She jumped over the staircase railing and slipped into the car’s driver seat. Calum slammed the passenger’s door shut and instantly started rummaging through the glovebox for another box of ammunition. She started up the car and they screeched out of the parking lot and onto the backroads of the huge Australian city. He had stood up in his seat and leaned out the window, shooting backwards at the men who had managed to get out to follow them.

“You know, we could’ve taken care of those guys if you would’ve brought some extra bullets,” Calum complained as he snapped the new casings into place and slipped back into his seat. He stuck the gun back in his waistband and pulled his jacket off.

“I swear if you’re about to critique me saving your life and all your fans-”

“I’m just saying that you never would’ve run from a fight before.” She scoffed and made a sharp right, making everyone in the car lean left.

“I’m not running from the fight, I’m saving all of your asses.” Before Calum could retort, a loud  _ boom  _ sounded from behind them. All four of the guys looked back to see the arena now blown to pieces, and covered in fire.

“There was a fucking bomb and you didn’t think to tell me?” Calum shouted at her, now more enraged than before, “we could’ve died!”

“But you didn’t! Because all your fans got out in time, and there was nobody alive in that building when we left.” Calum was speechless for the first time since he’d met this girl. The silence in the car was deafening. She tapped her finger on the steering wheel as they made their way down the empty side streets, the only sound being the rev of the engine.

“Does somebody want to explain  _ what the fuck is going on _ !?” The woman let out a loud laugh at Michael’s outburst.

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she glanced at Calum, who just stared out the window. “This bastard wouldn’t answer my phone calls. I was going to warn him about the attack on your show, but he wouldn’t let me get a word in. Apparently he’s too good for me now.” She noticed him cringe in the corner of her eye, but simply shook her head and scoffed quietly.

“Wait,  _ you’re  _ Sandy?” Luke asked. Calum sat up to answer, but she held a finger up to silence him for a moment.

“Who the hell is Sandy?”

“I just told you guys that so you wouldn’t ask questions,” Calum spoke up, earning a raised eyebrow from everyone in the car. “I didn’t tell you the truth because I didn’t want to accept the fact that it was real,” he glanced at the woman beside him, who shook her head.

“I’m not explaining anything. That’s on you,” he sighed and looked back at his friends.

“Guys, meet Autumn Young. She works for an organization called ‘CHIPA’ that deals with international threats, like the shooters at our show tonight. Those guys work for a Russian gang who we’ve dealt with before.”

“ _ We _ ?” Ashton asked, “also, just thought you should know that I’m still BLEEDING OUT HERE,” he exclaimed, only earning an eye roll from Autumn.

“There are towels under the seats. Take off your jacket and keep putting pressure on it. I’ll fix you up once we get somewhere safe,” she answered absentmindedly.

“Yes, we,” Calum continued, “while we were first starting the band, I worked with her on stuff like this. We were quite the team if I remember correctly.” He earned a swift punch in the arm for that comment, “we were the ones who took down that Russian gang the first time. They were pissed to say the least,” he explained simply. “I guess they found out where we were performing and came to get back at me.”

“So you’re a spy?” Luke asked, sounding like he didn’t believe him.

“Before he decided that he was too good for the job and quit,” Autumn answered coldly. “But it’s fine. He got to join a boyband after, so that’s great.” They drove for another fifteen minutes just in silence, but Autumn’s phone ringing broke that. She clicked a button on the center console of the car, bringing up a digital square photo of an older woman with dark hair, pinned up in a tight bun at the top of her head. Behind her was a bunch of technological equipment and even more people bustling about sporadically.

“Agent Young, I assume that all went well with your mission?”

“Not exactly,” she answered, “at least thirty crew members were killed and the bomb destroyed the arena. The band has been secured and all of the attendees got out before the arena exploded. Eight of Halkrof’s men are down and at least four more went down with the arena, but I can’t imagine they sent all of them inside.”

“Agent, the mission was to secure one of the men for interrogation. Casualties were to be expected.” The woman crossed her arms and glared at Autumn through the screen.

“I’m aware, but now we’re in the position to-”

“Agent Young this was your final chance to redeem yourself after the disaster in Nashville. Since you’ve failed yet another mission, I have no choice but to revoke your title.” Autumn pursed her lips and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “You are to report to headquarters with the boys of 5 Seconds of Summer immediately. They will be interrogated by one of our more capable agents.” With that, the call ended and the screen collapsed back into the dashboard.

“New plan,” she said after a moment, ignoring the concerned looks from Calum. She pulled over on the side of the road and sighed, seriously debating whether or not what she was about to do was a good idea. Finally deciding she didn’t have much to lose, she nodded to herself and got out of the car. “Cal, pop the hood for me,” she walked out to the front of the car and started working on the mechanics of the car.

“This is bad,” Calum whispered mainly to himself.

“Would you please explain what’s happening?” Ashton asked, sounding weaker than before. Calum looked back to see the white towel now covered in red, contrasting his now pale face.

“I don't know,” he answered honestly, not calming in friends in the slightest, “I’ll find out, and dude,” he pointed at Ashton, “don’t pass out on me.” He got out of the car and found Autumn ripping pieces of tech out of the car, “what the hell are you-”

“Not now, Calum.” She gingerly pulled a flexible piece of metal from the engine and smirked at it. “I need you to get a car to stop for us. We need to ask for directions,” the man raised an eyebrow, but shook his head and walked over towards the road to watch for cars.

“So what happened in Nashville?” he asked from a few feet away while he watched the road.

“Doesn’t matter,” she retrieved a plastic addon from the hood and threw it to the ground. She crushed it under her foot, then continued going through it. Once she’d finished going through the hood, she closed it up and walked around to Ashton’s side of the car, “grab the medical bag from the trunk.” She told Calum, who had no luck in flagging down cars. He threw her the white duffle bag, stained with blood, then leaned against the car.

“So you’re not a spy anymore?” Ashton asked when she opened his door. She glared at him with a small smirk.

“Let me see,” she took the towel from him and got him to pull his arm out of his shirt, “shit,” she hissed.

“What?” Michael asked from the other side of the seat.

“There’s no exit hole, which means you’ve still got a bullet in your arm,” she unzipped the duffle bag and pulled out all the materials she needed to dig the bullet out and stitch him back up.

“Tell me the truth, doc, how much is this going to suck?” she chuckled smally as she pulled on some latex gloves.

“You don’t want me to answer that,” she looked around the backseat until her eyes landed on the set of drumsticks sticking out of the inside pocket of his jacket, “these yours?” she asked as she pulled them out. He nodded and took them from her with his good arm, “great. You’ll need something to bite down on,” if it was possible, he paled even more before he handed Luke one of the sticks and put the other between his teeth. “Try not to move too much,” she told him, earning a quick nod. She readied the long tweezers in her hand and took a deep breath.

Ashton tried not to freak, he really did, but when Autumn started probing his gunshot wound with a pair of tweezers, he was really glad she had him bite down on his drumstick. He nearly broke Luke’s wrist too, and he hadn’t even realized when he’d grabbed it for support.

“There’s the bastard,” she smirked as she pulled the bullet out, leaving Ashton with his eyes shut tight and breathing heavily around the drumstick, “you can open your eyes now, sweetheart,” she grabbed the towel from over her shoulder and pressed it against his again.

“Autumn, we got someone,” Calum said as he stepped away from the car and started waving.

“Alright. I still have to stitch you up, but keep this here,” he nodded weakly and held the towel against his shoulder. Before she could stand up, someone’s phone started ringing, “don’t answer that,” she snapped, pointing at Michael, who pulled it out of his pocket.

“It’s my fiance, I have to tell her that we’re-”

“Absolutely not,” she shook her head, “right now we’re on both Halkrof’s  _ and  _ CHIPA’s radar. You answer that call and we’re all dead.” She pointed at the other two, “that goes for all of you.” She stood up and pulled off her gloves, which were now covered in blood. She pulled the piece of flexible metal from her pocket that she’d stripped from the hood and held it in her hand.

“You took out your own tracker?” Calum asked, earning a quick nod. He chuckled, “always the badass. You haven’t changed.”

“Can’t say the same for you,” he couldn’t answer in time before the old pickup truck screeched to a halt and opened its window to talk to them.

“Hey there, darlin’. Looks like you’re in a bit of a jam here huh?” Autumn giggled flirtatiously and leaned on the car, only getting an eye roll from Calum. She smiled at the driver, who seemed to be missing a few teeth.

“Just lost actually,” she corrected, “would you be able to give me directions to Busselton?” as he answered, she stuck the tracker on the underside of his rearview mirror. He’d never notice it. Once he finished his instructions, she giggled again and gave him a wide smile, “you’re a lifesaver. Maybe I’ll see you around?” the driver laughed nervously, but nodded.

“‘Course. I’d love to show you around the place sometime.” Calum got tired of watching the exchange and headed back to the car to see Michael staring at his phone while it rang, displaying a cute picture of Crystal.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Calum spoke, getting him to look up from the screen.

“This is the fourth time she’s called.”

“Same with Sierra.” Luke added, shoving his phone in his pocket after silencing it.

“My phone got destroyed in the arena by a bomb planted by a Russian gang,” Ashton said softly, “I doubt KayKay’s called though,” he added, almost inaudibly.

“Why wouldn’t she-”

“She’s cheating on me,” he said simply, “with our goddamn publicist.” He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “But it’s fine I guess because I haven’t been there enough for her. She deserves attention than I can give her.”

“Did I just hear you defending your cheating girlfriend?” Autumn returned, pushing past Calum and sitting on the backseat, facing Ashton. She pulled on another pair of gloves and pulled the towel off his shoulder again. “This isn’t going to be as bad, I promise,” she said before starting to stitch him up. “Ashton, answer something for me,” she said after a moment of quiet. He looked down at her with sad eyes, but listened. “Are you with her because it makes you happy, or because it makes other people happy?” He didn’t answer the entire time she wrapped his shoulder, and that was to be expected. “I’m sorry you guys got dragged into this. You don’t deserve it.” She put her medical supplies away, then handed the bag to Calum to put back in the trunk.

“You’re pretty, you know that?” Ashton said with a dopey smile.

“And you lost a lot of blood tonight.” She responded with a smile. “We’re going to one of my hideouts, but it’s about three hours from here, so get comfortable.” She closed the backdoor and slipped into the driver’s side, rubbing her eyes. “Hey Cal, while you’re back there, grab the other duffle and bring it up here.” He opened the passenger’s door and handed her the duffle bag.

She rummaged through it until she found her skinny jeans and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. She got changed right there in the front seat, ignoring the blush creeping up Calum’s neck and the glances from the boys in the backseat.

“Hey, Lex,” she said seemingly to nobody as she pulled the shirt on over her head.

“ _ Yes, Agent Young _ ?” a masculine voice came from the radio of the car.

“Cut off all communication with CHIPA. And don’t call me agent anymore.” She put her gun in her waistband and put the rest of her gear in the duffle, then handed it to Calum to put in the floorboard.

“ _ Does that include Ms. Rebecca Stiles, ma’am _ ?” she pursed her lips at the mention of her supervisor.

“Yes. Lex remember who made you, alright? If anyone from CHIPA tries to hack into your software, engage in attack-defense mode until further notice. And do me a favor and set my directions for Cervantes, will you?” She started the car back up.

“ _ Of course, Ms. Young.” _

“Alright guys, give me all your phones, credit cards, and anything else that they can track,” she reached into the backseat, instantly being handed two cell phones and a couple cards. She turned the phones off and slipped everything into the center console. Calum put his own things inside after turning off his phone.

“Calum, were you ever going to tell us that you were a spy?” Luke asked after they’d started driving.

“No,” he said after a moment, “I didn’t want to put you in danger.” They didn’t talk much after that. Ashton fell asleep shortly after they’d started driving again and had his face pressed against the cool window. “What does Halkrof want with me? When they stormed the arena they were shouting ‘Give us Calum Hood.’ I was big into CHIPA, but I wasn’t  _ that  _ important.” Autumn shrugged.

“I guess because it was easier to find you. Your face was plastered all over the city. Plus, you were the one to take them down with me. Halkrof somehow survived that attack and now he’s pissed.”

“Did he get that stick out of his ass since the last time I saw him?” He somehow coaxed a laugh out of her, which made him smile smally. “I guess not,” she shook her head and sighed. “So Nashville.”

“I don’t want to talk about Nashville.”

“Autumn-”

“No.” She shut him down almost instantly, “Lex, turn on the news. Focus it on the events at Perth Concert Hall tonight.”

“ _ Sure thing, Ms. Young _ .”

“ _ -thirty-six crew members found dead after the supposed terrorist attack on the first show of the 5 Seconds of Summer tour. Band members Luke Hemmings, Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford, and Calum Hood all still missing with no sign of identification on any of the shooters. Local police departments are working on finding the meaning behind this attack, but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. _ ” Lex switched the news station for us to hear a female reporter. “ _ We’re here with a group of survivors who witnessed the attack first hand. They say that a woman in black appeared from backstage and successfully apprehended eight of the shooters while getting everyone to safety. Who is this woman, and who is she working with if not the terrorists? Stay tuned while we obtain more details. _ ” The channel switched again. “ _ 5 Seconds of Summer band members all still missing after the attack on the Perth Concert Hall. Sierra Deaton and Crystal Leigh still at local police station collecting details while Kaitlin ‘KayKay’ Blaisdell spotted across town with the 5SOS publicist.” _

“ _ Would you like me to keep going, Ms. Young? _ ” Lex asked.

“No, Lex. Thanks.” Autumn sighed and rested her head in her hand with her elbow propped on the door. “I miss the days when I’d check the news and get facts, not just gossip. All we know is that they killed thirty-six crew members, and they’re probably working with a sketch artist to identify me.” She shook her head, “maybe they’re right to revoke my title.”

“Hey, Lex,” Calum spoke with a smirk, “play Autumn’s ‘I’m a badass spy’ playlist.”

“ _ Mr. Hood, fantastic to hear your voice again. _ ”

“No, Lex, play the 5 Seconds of Summer Youngblood album.”

“ _ Which will it be? _ ”


	3. The Morning After

The drive was long, and it would’ve been boring without the music in the background and Calum’s sarcastic comments. Soon enough, Luke and Michael fell asleep on each other’s shoulders while Calum and Autumn stayed up talking. It was just past midnight when they made it to a reserved beach in Cervantes. She drove across the sand and stopped right next to a huge rock covered in algae and a couple lobsters.

“Lex, you know what to do.”

“ _ I’m afraid I have to ask for identification, ma’am. Preferably a retinal scan and a thumb print. _ ” Autumn rolled her eyes and waited for the technology to reveal itself in the rock, successfully scaring the lobsters and getting them to scatter. She reached out the window and pressed her thumb to the sensor, then leaned forward so it could scan her eye. “ _ Welcome, Autumn Young. _ ” The technology in the rock reverted back into the landscape and the creak of metal could be heard underneath them. After a moment, then scene around them started to move upwards as they were lowered further into the sand.

“Did you bring us here to suffocate us in sand?” Calum whispered, only getting a silent shake of the head. Miraculously, the sand didn’t touch the car. It was as if they were riding an elevator down. “What is this place?” he asked as they were lowered into a dark room, the only light supplied from the moon above them. Once they stopped moving, she pulled forward into the darkness. The sandy floor behind them rose back up to close the ceiling and engulfed them in total darkness.

“Lex, lights please,” she turned the music down and smiled to herself as the room started to light up. Above them, huge lights turned on one-by-one, going as far as fifty feet until they stopped. They were in a huge garage with white walls lined with murals of comic book superheroes. Along the edges of the floor were countless old cars, all looked exactly like they’d just come off the showroom floor. She drove all the way to the end of the hall and pulled into a parking space. “Welcome to the Young Family Base,” she said before taking the keys out of the car and twisting them around her finger. “The place is completely off the grid. Nobody can find us here. Let’s go boys.” 

Luke, Michael, and Ashton walked behind Calum and Autumn, who showed them around briefly. Ashton was half-shirtless, using it as a make-shift sling, and was clearly cold from the base, which stayed roughly at fifteen degrees celsius. She led them to what looked like a war room built for main operations with a huge map of the world on a table: clearly the selling point of the room.

“I know you guys are probably exhausted, but I’m starving. I’m making some food, but I can show you to the bedrooms if you want to sleep.”

“Food first,” Luke said quickly, Michael and Ashton agreeing right behind him. “So, where exactly are we?” Autumn sat them down at the island of the kitchen which doubled as a bar, then started rummaging through her cabinets for ingredients.

“Exactly underneath the Indian Ocean.” All four of their eyes widened. “What? You said exactly,” she shrugged and placed all the ingredients to make sandwiches on the concrete counter, along with a couple of plates. “This is the base that’s been in my family for generations. Next question because I know you’ve got them.”

“Why is it so cold in here?” Ashton asked, clearly shivering. Calum had put his jacket back on, but with his wrapped shoulder, Ashton couldn’t do the same.

“Oh sorry,” she walked back around the bar and towards the closet beside the  _ actual  _ dining table and pulled out a blanket, “to answer your question, it’s because I only turn the heater on when it gets below zero. Saves energy,” she shrugged and handed him the blanket, which he draped over his shoulders and hugged around himself.

“Why did they attack our show?” Michael asked as he reached for the loaf of bread and started to make himself a sandwich.

“My best guess is because of Calum. Way back when he used to work with me, we took that gang down for good, er, we thought for good. Somehow the leader, Halkrof, survived, and is conspiring against us. It was easiest to find Calum since his face was plastered all over the city. You’re safe here until we find a way to take them down for good this time.” Calum looked down at the counter shamefully.

“When can we call our girlfriends and families to let them know we’re okay?” Autumn pursed her lips at Luke’s question.

“Guys, my number one goal is to keep as many people safe as I can, no matter what. Until Halkrof is either dead or behind bars, I don’t think it’s a good idea to give him any means to track you guys. Now that you’ve gotten intermixed with me, they’ll want all of you dead,” she shrugged.

“And CHIPA?” he added, just earning a nod.

“Are you secretly a millionaire?” Ashton asked just before he took a huge bite of the sandwich he’d just finished making. “You’ve got a secret base with like a hundred fancy cars, and you have your own JARVIS from Iron Man.” He shrugged, “plus, you know how to stitch people up, which would be pretty handy if you were a secret millionaire spy chick.”

“If I was, I’d never tell you,” she answered with a smirk. “Any more?” They glanced at each other, then back to her.

“Do you have an actual sling and a t-shirt that isn’t covered in blood?” Ashton asked after finishing his first sandwich and started to make another. “I also feel like maybe the burning isn’t normal, so,” he shrugged and took a huge bite of his second sandwich. Autumn dusted the crumbs off her hands and stood up straight.

“Calum, you have a sense about what to touch and what not to, so watch your friends while I take care of his shoulder,” she gestured for Ashton to follow while the boys happily munched on their sandwiches, “there are chips in the cabinet somewhere,” she shouted over her shoulder at them as they walked back out into the map room.

“Have you ever had to do this before?” he asked as they walked through the room and down a long hallway towards the medic ward.

“I’ve fixed up plenty of gunshot wounds, Ash. Some on Calum, actually.” She answered with a smile.

“No, I mean, have you ever had to bring a boyband to your super secret family base because they’re being hunted by a Russian gang, a spy organization, and the press?” she laughed and shook her head.

“Can’t say that I have.” She pulled him into the medical ward, which was fairly simple. Designed like a doctor’s office, there were cabinets lining one of the walls, filled with medical equipment and a metal table in the center of the room. Counters lined another wall fit with a sink and other means of sanitation and lots of jars containing things like cotton balls and syringes. “Hop up,” she patted the table before heading towards the cabinets to get the items she needed. “Luckily, the guy who shot you didn’t do very well. He missed any major arteries, so you didn’t bleed out, he didn’t hit any nerves-.”

“So you’re saying that this shouldn’t affect my ability to drum?” she bit her lip.

“He did manage to hit your bone,” she turned just in time to see his face fall.

“And that means-” he tried to pull off his make-shift sling, but stopped halfway through and hissed in pain. She sat on the table beside him, but facing him with their legs brushing each other.

“You’re not going to be able to move your shoulder for a while, and I mean a long while.” He pursed his lips and hesitated, but nodded. “I’m gonna try to fix you up the best I can, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to drum for a couple months after this...if not longer,” she filled a syringe with a pain medication and met his eyes. “Here, this will help with the pain for now,” he winced at the injection, but instantly felt the coolness spread through his arm. “Tell me about yourself, Ashton. Surely you’re more interesting than Calum,” he chuckled and looked down at the floor.

“I wouldn’t say that. He was apparently a spy,” the girl scoffed and shook her head. She held his arm with her own, their fingers intertwined and pressed against his chest, putting the two closer than expected. Autumn cut through his shirt, knowing it would only cause him more pain to take it off. “You smell like vanilla,” he said quietly, getting a smile from the girl, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why-”

“It’s alright. It’s my favorite, actually,” she carefully pulled the shirt away, leaving just the blanket on his good shoulder and the bandages on the other. “So what’s your plan? Drum for the band, I get, but what after that?”

“I don’t know, actually. I hope to pursue music for the rest of my career, I just don’t know how. Maybe teach?” Autumn raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m serious.” She raised her hands in surrender and cut through the bandages on his shoulder, careful to keep it still while he talked. “I’ve always really liked art. Plus I could be that cool art teacher who lets kids stay in their classroom for lunch and makes excuses to get them out of class.” She nodded approvingly and pulled away the old bandages. “I don’t know, if all else fails I can drum on trash cans in the street.”

“I doubt it’ll come to that,” she chuckled as she prepared the alcohol-soaked cotton with one hand, keeping the other on his arm. “This is going to sting,” she locked eyes with him first. He was uncertain and worried, but he gulped and nodded for her to continue. When she first pressed the cotton to his wound, he flinched and tightened his grip on her hand. He shut his eyes and gripped the table edge with his free hand. “You’re alright,” she said softly and squeezed his hand in hers. “Hey, you know,” Autumn started, seeing that he was still tense with pain, “my favorite song on the Youngblood album is the one with your voice in it the most. ‘Best Friend,’ right?” he slowly relaxed and looked up, then nodded. “Which one’s your favorite?”

“I-I like, uh-” he bit his lip to keep from shouting out in pain when she pressed a little too hard, “T-Talk Fast,” she smirked.

“Hey Lex, play Talk Fast by 5 Seconds of Summer at a low volume.” He managed a weak smile at her.

“ _ Would you like it throughout the whole base or just in this room? _ ”

“Just here,” just after the song started playing, she finished off and dropped the cotton into the trash. “Hard part is over. Now we just have to wrap it.” She applied a cotton square over the wound to help any bleeding, then grabbed her roll of gauze. “I’m going to need my hand back for this,” she whispered, making him blush and let her hand go.

“Where’d you learn how to do all this?” She wrapped his shoulder tightly to immobilize it, down his arm, then over his chest and back around his shoulder.

“Part of the job description, I guess. Before my supervisor thought I was good enough to go out in the field, they had me working in the medical ward patching up our soldiers,” she shrugged. “I picked up a few things from the people who were above me.” She found herself now kneeling on the table, putting her at the same height as him now. She had one knee between his thighs and the other nearly hanging off the table. Meeting Ashton’s eyes, she’d only just realized how close they were.

“Autumn, thank you,” he breathed, eyes darting from her eyes to her lips. Jesus, she’d never wanted to kiss someone as much as she did right now. “I don’t know what would’ve happened without you,” she brought her hand up to cup his face and practically melted in his eyes. They were warm and inviting in the way they absorbed the light rather than reflecting it. It was official, hazel was her new favorite color. “I really want to kiss you.”

“What’s stopping you?” she whispered. He leaned in slowly, just barely touching his lips to hers hesitantly. Ashton took in the softness of her lips, the vanilla scent of her hair, and her fingers trailing down his jaw all at once. It hit him so hard it almost hurt his head. He brought his good arm up to nuzzle his hand in her hair as Autumn dragged her fingernails lightly along the side of his head until she reached the top of his neck. She pulled him closer and felt him smile against her mouth. This boy’s poor painkiller drugged heart almost exploded. He kissed her with all the insane emotions from today - the excitement for the show, the fear from the attack, the pain, the comfort, the contentment, and everything in between.

Autumn thought she was going crazy. She’d spent all these years pining for Calum, deep down knowing he only saw her as a sister, and now? With his bandmate’s tongue in her mouth? All the unrequited feelings for Calum seemed to disappear when she was with Ashton, something that she didn’t think was possible. His touch against her felt electric and she felt younger than she had in awhile.

“Wow,” she whispered when he pulled away to breathe, resting his forehead against hers.

“Wow,” he agreed, making her smile. “That was, um-”

“Yeah.”

“ _ Ms. Young? _ ” Lex’s voice called, cutting off their music and earning a groan from the girl. “ _ Mr. Hemmings and Mr. Clifford have found the bedrooms and have retired for the night. While Mr. Hood is wondering the halls looking for you and Mr. Irwin. _ ” Ashton sighed.

“Buzzkill.”

“Lead him here.” She smirked at the man beneath her and pecked his lips again before climbing back to the floor. “You need an actual sling for that shoulder if you want to drum anytime soon,” she explained as she rummaged through the cabinets. Eventually, she pulled out a navy sling, “aha! I don’t have a ton of options for t-shirts. All I’ve got are my dad’s old NASA and CHIPA shirts. You can wear those, they’re just a little dusty.” He smirked when she handed him a space station t-shirt, then put the sling down on the table.

“Dusty’s better than bullet holes and blood,” she nodded with a chuckle. She helped him into the shirt, bad arm first then over his head. He pulled his other arm through while she sorted out the straps on the sling. The thing acted like more of a support. She secured it around his bicep and forearm, then made sure that his shoulder was still immobile.

“Well, it looks like you’re all set.” Just in time, the door opened and Calum peeked in.

“Would ya look at that,” Ashton teased, “I’m surprised you found us in this maze.” Autumn waved him off and turned to Calum, leaning against the table edge.

“How are they doing?” she asked him, eyebrows furrowed.

“They’re fine, considering,” he answered simply, leaning against one of the counters to face us, “how are you doing, dumbass?” Ashton put a hand over his heart and put on an offended expression.

“You take a bullet for your mate and this is the thanks you get? What’s the world come to?”

“You’re clearly feeling better,” Autumn laughed, nudging his knee with her elbow. “He’s looking good aside from the swelling, but that should go down now that his shoulder’s been immobilized. If all else fails, we can just ice it. Aside from that, I think he should heal with little lasting damage and be back drumming within the next few months.” She looked up at Ashton, who nodded approvingly, then sighed. “Alright boys, I’m exhausted. Do you know which rooms Luke and Michael took?” Calum shook his head.

“ _ Mr. Hemmings is in room four and Mr. Clifford is in room five. Both seem to be adjusting as well as to be expected. _ ” Lex answered.

“Perfect. My stuff is set up in room two, so you two can pick whichever one you want,” she said with a smile. “I need to grab something from the kitchen, but you can ask Lex to lead you around as much as you need to and you know which room to find me in if you need anything.” With that, she headed out of the med ward and started to walk through the maze of corridors that she’d memorized. Autumn loved having people here for a change. Usually it was just her and Lex, but it was nice to have people to talk to.

She made it to the kitchen and smiled at the fact that everything had been put away already. She grabbed a glass of water, making sure to put her glass away when she was finished, then headed back to her room.

Autumn’s bedroom was simple. The white walls and concrete floors matched the entire base, but her room was somehow cozier. She had a queen sized bed that sat at the center of the room, covered in dark blue bed sheets and was covered in fluffy pillows. Along the walls were photographs. Most were of her and her parents from when she was young, some were with Calum from when they worked together, and she even had one of all four of the guys from one of their more recent tours. Scattered on her desk were papers that she didn’t want to look at. The ceiling however, she loved looking at. Lex had managed to project a real-time view of the stars outside and it was breathtaking.

“Lex, bedtime lights, please.” The overhead lights dimmed to nothing and her bedside lamp flipped on, putting a yellow glow on the furniture. She stripped her bed aside from two pillows and her blankets, then changed into her pajamas and adjusted her ponytail into a messy bun. “Wake me up if any of the guys wake up and start wondering,” she told Lex as she climbed into bed.

“ _ Of course, Ms. Young. Pleasant dreams. _ ”

  
  
\-------------------  
  


Autumn expected for one of the guys to wake up in the middle of the night, which is why it came as a huge shock when she was awakened by her normal alarm at seven in the morning. She kicked off her morning routine like normal. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got changed into a band tank-top and a pair of athletic shorts. Her hair went up into a ponytail and she grabbed her hand wraps from her bedside table.

“Lex, let the guys know where I am when they wake up,” she told the AI as she walked down the long hallways towards the gym. Autumn wrapped her hands up when she got to the gym, throwing her towel down as well. “Let’s make it a thing where when I walk into a room, the lights automatically turn on unless told otherwise, okay?” the fluorescent lights flickered on, making the whole room about three shades whiter, almost hurting her eyes. “Put on my workout playlist, volume four, just in here.”

The gym was pretty simple. The white walls matched the rest of the base, but ellipticals, treadmills, and punching bags lined the walls. In the center of the room was a boxing arena. The center of the floor had the Young logo plastered on it, just like every other piece of equipment in the room. The ropes of the arena were blue and black, and two sets of gloves hung over them. At the entrance of the room was a water station with fountains and a shit-ton of water bottles. Then finally, at the back of the room was the entrance to the showers: the place where Autumn was going to go right after this.

She was most fond of the punching bags. It was easy to take her aggression out on the bags rather than someone else. It was almost therapeutic. Things were normal for the first time in the past twenty-four hours. She got through about ten songs, ranging between Eye of the Tiger and Titanium appropriately, before Lex stopped her music.

“ _ Ms. Young, you told me to alert you when one of our visitors awakened. _ ” Autumn sighed and leaned against the punching bag, waiting for him to continue.

“Okay, and?”

“ _ Mr. Hemmings is wandering the halls in an attempt to find you. The others are still asleep. _ ”

“Alright, send him down here.” It took a good few minutes before he finally made it to the gym, finding Autumn downing her third water bottle, and clearly had been working out already. Her ponytail had loosened and her face was red. She was a little out of breath, but stunning regardless.

“Morning, sunshine,” she smiled at him and set her empty water bottle on the bench alongside her two others. “I had Lex set up some basic hygiene stuff in all your bathrooms, I hope they were alright.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he looked around the room, partially in awe, “you’ve got your own gym in here and everything?” she nodded, following his gaze. “The only thing you’re missing in a pool-” he paused, “you don’t have a pool, do you?” she chuckled and shook her head. Smirking at his prolonged gaze at the boxing arena, she crossed her arms and jumped up on the ring. “Are you serious?” he asked, walking forward slowly.

“‘Course. That’s what it’s here for.” She pointed towards the shower doors, “there’s some workout clothes over there unless you want to box in your pajamas,” he nodded and headed back there. He came back out moments later with his hair tied back, dressed in a tight-fitting black t-shirt and a pair of blue shorts. “Do you want blue or black?” she asked, holding both pairs of gloves in her hands. He pointed at the blue pair, and she threw them at him, hitting him square in the chest. “So,” she held the ropes apart so he could climb in, “how much do you know about fighting? Do I need to teach you or fight you?” he chuckled and tapped his gloves together.

“I know my way around the ring. Give me all you’ve got,” he readied himself and raised his fists. She raised her eyebrows and smirked.

“All I’ve got? You sure?” he nodded. She sighed, then reached over the corner of the ring and rang the bell. “You pick the music, hotshot,” she pointed up to the ceiling. A sly grin pulled at his lips.

“Ladies first.”

“Lex, I’m about to kick Luke’s ass. Put something on to motivate him.” A moment later, Rihnanna’s ‘Breakin’ Dishes’ started playing over the speakers surrounding the ring. Autumn’s mouth curled into a sinister smile and she readied herself.

Now, she hadn’t expected Luke to put up much of a fight against her professional training, but she was taken totally by surprise at his abilities. She was shit at boxing, but she could fight. Luke called her out every time she would do something outside of the rules, laughing lightly.

“This isn’t MMA, Autumn!”

“I never specified that we were boxing!” Autumn brought her foot up and nailed him in the ribs with the top of her foot, briefly knocking the breath out of him. What she hadn’t anticipated was him grabbing her leg and twisting it up, making her land flat on her back below him. “Fair enough,” she nodded before hooking her arm around his leg and pulling him down with her. He landed on his butt with an ‘oof’ but laughed it off. 

The fighting went on like that for about half an hour before Lex stopped the music. The beats stopped just in time to hear Luke’s back hit the stage, sending a  _ boom  _ throughout the room. Autumn laughed with him and helped him up, then dusted herself off and tried to slow her breathing.

“ _ Ms. Young, the remainder of the boys have awakened and have gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. Mr. Clifford seems to be making scrambled eggs. _ ”

“Breakfast of champions,” Luke chuckled and started undoing the velcro on his gloves.

“Thanks, Lex. Tell them that I’ll be out there after I shower,” she took the elastic from her hair, relieving the dull headache that came from it and ran her hands through it. “You can go meet up with them if you want. I’ll only be a few minutes,” he nodded and grabbed a water bottle on his way out. “Lead him to the kitchen so he doesn’t get lost,” she told Lex before heading back to the showers.

Autumn walked into the kitchen, now wearing a pair of jean shorts and another band t-shirt, this one for AC-DC. She left her still wet hair down and smiled at the sight of the boys eating at the island while Michael stood over the stove. They all wore pajamas now, other than Luke, who still wore the clothes he’d just been fighting in.

“I see you’ve made yourselves at home,” she chuckled, sliding into the empty seat beside Calum. “What’s for breakfast?” Calum slid a plate over to you.

“Two scrambled eggs with two slices of toast-”

“Fuckin’ burnt toast,” Michael added.

“I literally told her that every morning when we worked together,” Calum nodded, only getting an eye roll from the girl. “I didn’t remember your full order, but this is what I did remember,” he gestured towards the food and handed her a fork.

“I feel like I should let you all know that Autumn dirty boxes,” Luke said after a moment of peaceful silence, the sizzling of the bacon being the only noise. She shook her head and waved him off.

“Please, you’re just bitter because I won,” she retaliated as she piled her eggs on her toast, then took a huge bite. “And I never said we  _ weren’t  _ dirty boxing.” She glanced at him down the counter past Calum and Ashton. “If you get into that ring with me, you subject yourself to every type of fighting that I’ve ever learned all mixed together,” she pointed at Calum, “this bastard stopped training with me when I first started doing it. I had to use dummies after that, and they don’t fight back.”

Breakfast was awkwardly silent after Michael sat down to eat. None of them really knew what to say, at least, until Michael cleared his throat and leaned down on the counter to meet all of their eyes, mainly Autumn’s.

“Clearly nobody’s going to ask, so I will,” he started, “what are we doing here?”

“Eating the breakfast that you kindly made for us, so thank you.” Autumn answered simply with a small shrug, but she sighed when he shook his head, not accepting her response. “We’re laying low for now. After the attack on your show, which required a shit-ton of preparation and effort, Halkrof has to recuperate before he does anything big.” She stood up from the bar stool and walked over to the cabinet to grab a coffee cup, then started up the coffee pot. “Lex is constantly monitoring major news, minor news, facial recognition softwares, and police feeds and he’ll tell us if Halkrof surfaces for anything.”

“And CHIPA?” Ashton asked. Autumn bit her lip before continuing.

“I can only imagine how pissed CHIPA is at me right now for failing another mission, going rogue, and technically kidnapping you guys. If even a facebook video sees my face, they’ll-” she bit her tongue and looked away from them. Suddenly the coffee pot filling up became much more interesting than the conversation at hand.

“Autumn committed treason to the highest degree,” Calum continued for her, “she went rogue, and for that-” he swallowed audibly, “if they find her, they’ll take total control of her mind and she’ll become one of their soldiers.” A heavy silence settled over the room.

“And that’s bad?” Ashton asked after a moment.

“Imagine losing every ounce of feeling in your body...your brain.” She felt her eyes burning, but blinked back the tears before they even saw the light of day. “They reprogram you into a goddamn expendable war machine with no choice but to do what they tell you.” Just then, the machine beeped. She poured herself a cup, then gestured to the pot. “Anyone want some?”


	4. Trauma

It had been just under two weeks since the attack and there was still nothing indicating that Halkrof was looking for them. The boys were developing an intense cabin fever regardless of how much there was to do in the base. Autumn couldn’t blame them. They were used to traveling around the world. Now, they all sat in the gym around the boxing ring, discussing something that could change the world.

“I bet you twenty bucks you can’t beat Autumn in there,” Michael nudged Calum in the side and pointed to the center of the ring.

“Are you serious?” he looked between the ring and his friend, who raised his eyebrows in anticipation. “Dude, I haven’t fought like that in years. She’ll kick my ass even if she does play by the rules.” Michael pulled a twenty from his pocket and stared Calum down until he sighed. “You’re not going to give this up, are you?”

“Hey Autumn!” he said loud enough for her to hear from across the ring. “I just bet Calum twenty bucks he can’t beat you. Winner takes it all.” He pointed down at the ring with his bill.

“Oh shit, yes,” Ashton stood up from his chair and rushed over to the bell.

“Hold your horses, Irwin,” Calum stood up and pulled off the hoodie that he’d been wearing, tossing it back on his seat. He pointed across the stage at the blonde girl with stern eyes. “No dirty boxing.”

“What the hell, Hood?” she complained as she threw her hair up into a ponytail and grabbed her gloves from the foot of the stage. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t dirty box. That involves blood, and I’d be the one who’d have to clean it up.” She tossed him the other pair of gloves and jumped up into the ring. “I got the perfect song for this,” she cleared her throat and punched her fists together. “Lex, play ‘You’re Going Down’ by the Sick Puppies when Ashton rings the bell,” Calum rolled his eyes and hopped up on the stage as well.

“ _ Do you really believe that this fight will last the full length of the song, Ms. Young? _ ” Ashton, Luke, and Michael all roared with laughter at Lex’s comment.

“I hate you, Lex,” he looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s get this over with, sweetheart,” he tapped his gloves together and bounced himself off the ropes.

“Alright youngins,” Ashton started in his best announcer voice, “I want a good, clean fight here tonight. Defend yourselves and shit, and Autumn don’t let him win because I’m putting twenty bucks on you too.” She laughed and walked over to him, then reached over the ropes and ruffled his hair.

“I’ll try,” she chuckled and tapped him on the cheek before readying up and holding her fists up in front of her face. “Ready when you are, Ash,” Calum winked at her.

Ashton rang the bell and the music started. Both Calum and Autumn side-stepped in the circle, waiting to strike first. Calum swung first, a few times, only landing a good punch to her side before getting suckerpunched in the stomach. She chuckled to herself and backed up a bit. He staggered a moment, then stood up charged at her, managing to hook his arm around her waist and throwing her to the ground. The boys groaned at the loud slam on the stage. Unbeknownst to Calum, she smirked at the boys, who she was now eye level with. She thrust her hips up and completely entrapped his legs in her own, then twisted her body and pulled Calum to the floor, making him fall face-first on the stage. She jumped up and planted her knee right between his shoulder blades and held his wrists behind his back.

“Don’t ring that bell, you bastard,” he glared at Ashton, who’d risen the hammer up to hit the bell, but stopped in his tracks. “We’ve still got some time left on the song,” before he had the chance to make his escape, the song ended and Ashton rang the bell while the boys hollered.

“ _ Excellent efforts, Mr. Hood. _ ”

“Alright, pay up, bastards,” Autumn helped him up and slipped through the ropes onto the ground. She held out her hand and waited for the forty bucks she’d won. “Maybe we can order pizza as soon as we can risk leaving the base,” she slipped the bills into her pocket and smirked at them.

“Still nothing on Halkrof?” Calum asked, sounding a little gruff. “There’s no way he’s been able to stay quiet for this long,” she shrugged.

“Lex, you got anything?”

“ _ Vincent Halkrof has made no attempt at a reappearance in the past twelve days. I’ve been working to hack into their main database, but have yet to crack their firewalls. _ ”

“What are we supposed to do when he does resurface?” Luke asked from his comfortable position with his feet propped up on the stage. “Kick ass and take names?” he seemed confused at her sudden laughter. “What? He crashed our concert and killed our crew members. I for one, want to kick some ass and take their names!” Her laughter softened after a moment and she put a hand on his shoulder.

“I know you’re pissed, but absolutely not.”

“Seriously Luke,” Calum leaned on the ropes, an empty water bottle in one hand and his gloves in the other. He went to say something else, but stopped himself. A sly grin spread across his face. “I have an idea,” he slipped between the ropes with a grunt and waved his arm for everyone to follow him.

“Do you know what he’s doing?” Ashton whispered to Autumn, leaning down to match her height as they walked down the halls. She simply shook her head. “That’s reassuring.” They walked down the halls, and after the first three turns, she finally knew what he was doing. Calum smiled to himself as they walked through a door at the end of the hall. Inside was a simple white room. Three of the walls were normal, one of them even with a line of cabinets that reached all the way up to the ceiling. The other wall was divided in half with a counter that stuck out halfway up the wall. Autumn walked in front of them and smiled as she took hold of the handles that stuck out of the top half of the wall and pulled them apart, revealing that the room went down much farther down than expected with lines of posters at the end.

Calum opened the cabinets and pulled out four hand guns. He placed them in front of each of the posters, then crossed his arms and turned to his friends.

“If you can kill those paper people, you can help take down Halkrof.”

“Cal, I don’t think this is a good idea,” he waved her off.

“Dibs on Autumn teaching me,” Ashton raised his hand with a smile. She sighed.

“Calm down, hotshot, I’ll teach all of you. Unless Calum remembers enough, then he can-”

“Nope, Calum doesn’t remember shit,” Luke butted in. “He’s been out of practice for years. It would be much better for you to teach us.”

“Well fuck you too, Luke.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed his own gun. He pointed it at the posters and fired three times, hitting the poster guy square in the chest perfectly. He put the gun back down on the counter and smiled smugly at his friends. “I’ll just be in the kitchen. Making myself a sandwich.” He sauntered out of the shooting range sluggishly. Autumn sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I’m gonna kill him,” she shook her head, “Calum, get your ass back here.”

After dealing with a butthurt Calum, Autumn stood in front of the boys with her handgun and instructed them on the basics. She stood in front of the posters and fired it off twice, hitting the paper guy in the face. “Simple.” She turned back around and smiled at them before putting the gun back down on the counter. “Take your places, and don’t shoot yourselves.” She backed up from the counter and let the boys step up and take their guns. She watched as Luke and Michael held their guns up correctly, but then her eyes stopped on Ashton. Still with his sling, he pointed the gun with one hand and couldn’t stable himself with the other. Shakily, he took a breath and clicked the safety off.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait-” Autumn rushed over and put a hand on his outstretched arm. “This is an accident waiting to happen.” She positioned herself right behind him and reached up to stabilize his hand. He smirked at the feeling of her hand on his hip and turned his head to look down at her.

“This would be cuter if you were in front of me.”

“I swear to god, Ashton,” he chuckled and looked back up at the target. “Aim for the chest, alright?” he nodded and tensed up, “Ash, you need to relax,” she tapped her fingers to his hip and stood up on her toes to reach his ear. He clenched his jaw and something flashed over his eyes, but he shook his head and put the gun back down on the counter.

“This is stupid. I can’t do this.”

“That’s alright,” she stepped back and leaned against the counter to look him in the face. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” she shrugged. Just then, both Luke and Michael fired their guns, both hitting the concrete wall behind the posters. Ashton jumped at the gunshots and reached back to grab Autumn’s arm, squeezing tightly as they continued to shoot their bullets. Once they stopped, his grip didn’t loosen until she tapped his hand.

“Shit, I didn’t-” he looked down and realized that he still held her arm. “I’m sorry-” he quickly pulled away and walked out of the shooting range. Calum noticed this and pointed out the door, raising an eyebrow at the blonde.

“You stick with them. Take them to the training room and make sure to use airsoft guns unless you want to die. I’ll go see what’s wrong.” Autumn knew what was wrong. She’d gone through the shit herself. “Don’t be stupid guys,” she pointed at the three of them, remaining on Calum for a moment longer, “that includes you, dumbass.” They all raised their hands in surrender.

She walked out the door and a bit down the hallway before she sighed.

“Lex, where’d Ashton go?”

“ _ Mr. Irwin is in your bedroom. _ ” She furrowed her eyebrows and headed that way. She found the door ajar and saw the redhead sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the foot of her bed. He stared up at the ceiling, which now displayed the real sky outside. It was sunset, making the sky a beautiful collection of pinks, yellows, and oranges. She pushed the door open slightly, now seeing the tear marks on his cheeks.

She bit her tongue and quietly walked over to sit beside him. They sat under the projected sky until the sun set completely and the ceiling was covered in stars. Soon enough, clouds rolled in and the sky turned to gray. She rested her head on the memory foam mattress and took a deep breath. Things were peaceful.

“Can you project stuff on the wall too?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“ _ The view is much better in the virtual reality room, Mr. Irwin. _ ” Lex incited. “ _ It offers a full view of 360 degrees and feels as though you’re actually in the place you wish to be. _ ”

Without much consideration, Ashton stood up and walked with Autumn to the virtual reality room, which was just a simple white room with small sensors in the corners. She sat with him on the edge of the room and leaned against the wall.

“Lex, can you show us the view from Venice Beach?” Ashton asked, leaning his head back to touch the wall. “It’s going to be sunrise soon.” She smiled and looked over at him to see a small smile on his face. “We did a show in Venice once, and it had the most breathtaking sunrise that I’d ever seen.” It was still dark outside in Venice, but it was clear that the sun was going to rise soon. “This tour was supposed to be a new beginning for us. It was a new beginning for our music, our style, and now-” he shook his head. After a moment, the white of the walls morphed into a beach. They were sitting in the sand of Venice Beach overlooking the ocean, shining in the soft moonlight. They could hear the tide moving over the sand and could smell the saltiness of the water.

“I’m sorry that your show got attacked.” Autumn said softly, unsure of what else to say.

“It’s not your fault.” He laced his fingers together and looked down at his hands. “I’m the one who told you that you that we’d send you a muffin basket if you stopped calling Calum,” he chuckled softly.

“I like chocolate chip muffins,” she said with a smirk, “just so you know.” She looked down at his hands, his laced fingers now loosened and tapping against each other, probably to a song playing in his head. “I want to apologize for that night when you and the guys first got here,” she said softly as she watched the ocean. She brought her legs up and rested her elbows on her knees.

“What are you-” he paused, “oh, right,” Ashton clenched his jaw and watched the horizon line just like she was. “It’s fine. I was the one who initiated the kiss, so I should be the one apologizing. Things were just really emotional, and I’d just told the guys about-” he stopped himself and closed his eyes, slightly shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Autumn.” When the sun peaked up above the horizon, Ashton managed a weak smile and looked over at Autumn with a bright glint in his eyes.

“I’ve never-” she started, only to have the words die in her mouth, “I just-” she blinked and smiled wide. She laughed and brought her hand up to cover her mouth. “This is beautiful.”

The sunrise was something that Autumn had never seen before. It lasted for about half an hour before Ashton took her hand gingerly. She looked over at him with glassy eyes, but blinked back tears before any could fall.

“Thanks for coming to find me after I walked out,” he said softly, just staring down at her hand in his. “I don’t know what came over me.” He shrugged.

“I can hear you at night, Ash.” He bit his lip and glanced up at her. “I’m sorry that you’ve been having nightmares. I wish there was something that I could do.”

“I might never drum again,” he choked out, “I don’t...I don’t think I can handle that. And the crew members-” he shook his head and took his hand back to rub his eyes. “They had families.” Her heart broke for him.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she put her arm around his shoulders and let him lean into her chest, “Ash, you can’t torture yourself like that. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen. It’s not your fault.” She rubbed circles over his back and shoulder blades. “What happened that night was a tragedy, yes, it was awful, but we’re working towards fixing this.”

“You’re right. This is stupid,” he pulled himself up and wiped his face and cleared his throat. She took his hand and slid around him to now sit right in front of him.

“This is not stupid, Ashton. You and your friends went through something incredibly traumatic. It’s not stupid that you feel like this, and it’s not stupid that you can’t fire that gun in there.” He went to disagree, but she held up her hand to stop him. “Takes one to know one.” He clenched his jaw and looked down at the ground. “Hey, look at me,” she lifted his face up with her knuckle and offered him a small smile. “You’re going to get through this, and I have faith in your shoulder. You’re going to drum again.” He managed a weak smile. “Come on, now-” she reached up and brushed the tear marks off his cheeks with the pads of her thumbs, “you’re too cute to be sad.”

“Why’d Cal ever leave you?” she chuckled and shook her head.

“Spy life isn’t for everyone.” He reached up and cupped her face gently. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers softly. After a moment, they started feeling the heat from the Venice sunrise. Autumn pulled away to see the early morning glow of the sunlight on his face. She put her hand over his, which still rested on her face and looked up at him. “This isn’t a good idea, Ashton.”

“ _ Ms. Young, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve managed to hack into Vincent Halkrof’s main database. I believe there’s something you should see. _ ” Autumn jumped up from the floor without warning.


	5. Sandwiches?

“Lex, power off the virtual reality shit,” she offered a hand to Ashton and helped him up.

“Should we get-”

“No, they’ve probably got their ears full of cotton playing with those airsoft guns.” She walked with him back to the war room, finding all of the information already displayed over the map table.

“I know this is a really bad situation, but this table is pretty badass.” Ashton squatted down beside the table to see about an inch between the holograms of the information and the wooden tabletop. “I mean, this technology shouldn’t even be possible yet, at least not for a few years.”

“Thanks sweetheart, but let’s marvel at the technology later,” she stood at the center of the map and started swiping through the files of little importance. “Lex, I’m not seeing anything of value here,” she said after a moment.

“ _ Do I have to do everything, Ms. Young? _ ” she put her hands on her hips and looked down at the screen.

“Oh shit, Jarvis just sassed you,” Ashton sat down in one of the swivel chairs and slid over to where Autumn stood to look over the information. “Wait, look at this,” he reached across the table and pulled a tab to the center labeled in Russian. “Yup. That’s definitely in a language that I can’t read.” She looked down at it and furrowed her eyebrows.

“Бутерброды” she read, only earning a one-shouldered shrug from him, “sandwiches.”

“Why would they have sandwich recipes in their super secret russian gang database? That’s more of a ‘little wooden box in the kitchen’ type of thing, right?” she nodded and opened up the file and started reading through the memos. Ashton sat there, pretending to understand what was going on, for a solid thirty seconds before he sighed and propped his elbows on the table.

“Lex, can you translate this stuff to a language that I can read?”

“ _ Of course, Mr. Irwin. _ ” Lex translated everything on the table to Italian.

“Are you serious?” She pressed her hands to the table and turned to Ashton.

“Aha!” he laughed and leaned over the table to read over the files.

“You could’ve just asked for English. But joke’s on you, I can read this too,” he shrugged his good shoulder, then pointed at the sandwich file. 

“These are some messed up gang members. What kind of crazy person puts olives, peanut butter, and vegemite on the same sandwich? And does that say chicken feathers?”

“ _ Mr. Hood, Mr. Hemmings, and Mr. Clifford have all sustained minor injuries from their airsoft war and are on their way back here. _ ” Autumn pulled up all the sandwich recipes and set them side-by-side, ignoring Lex’s last comment.

“Alright this is weird,” Ashton incited after reading through all of them. “These people have no idea how to make sandwiches.” He shook his head in disbelief.

“What are you guys doing?” Calum’s voice asked from behind them.

“Just learning that Halkrof could never own his own sandwich shop,” Ashton shook his head again. “It’s a shame, really. I was excited to try it out.”

“Wait, you got the files?” he asked, rushing forward beside them and looking through the information himself. “Why the hell is it in Italian? Lex, translate to English, please.” Lex sighed and translated everything on the table again. “Sandwich recipes?” he asked after reading over the files. “I don’t understand.” Autumn snapped her fingers and turned to Calum.

“Do you remember when we were training back at CHIPA and Halkrof captured us that one time? His dumbass henchmen kept saying that all that we deserved was a pastrami on rye? And we thought it was crazy because pastrami on rye is so good, even though they meant it as an insult?” she watched his eyebrows furrow in confusion as he recalled.

“Why do you remember that?”

“Doesn’t matter. The point is that we’ve already seen instances with sandwiches being used as code for these guys. Maybe they weren’t smart enough to change it.” She shrugged and looked back down at the table. “It’s a long shot, but-”

“We can look into it,” he nodded, “but we don’t have any way to decipher them, do we?” He looked up at her with soft eyes, noticing the hopeful look on her face. He couldn’t dampen that. It was the first time he’d seen her hopeful in these past two weeks. “Alright, let’s work with sandwich codes.” He pulled up his own swivel chair and slid up to the table. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as hard as they thought.

Michael gasped from the end of the table, making everyone look up from their notes. They’d been working on this for two days now, making it a full two weeks of being hidden in the base. Everyone was itching to get out, but they all knew at this point how bad an idea that would be.

“Did you find something?” Calum asked, sliding over to where his friend sat.

“Nope,” he shook his head and leaned back against his chair, “this is making me hungry though.”

“Seriously? I can’t even look at a sandwich right now.” Autumn disagreed and swiped through her notes, trying to find any overlays. “Alright, I’ll say it. This is pointless.” She rubbed her face and sighed, then glanced up at the rest of the boys. “Luke, you look pretty concentrated,” he was vigorously writing something down on a pen and paper. He’d insisted on doing it on paper, claiming that using technology this advanced gave him a headache. “Did you find something?” he nodded quickly and slid his paper across the table.

“I compared the events of our show to the sandwich recipe with the same date on it. It looks like rye bread means they planted a bomb, peanut butter is whether or not Halkrof is going to be there, and the amount of olives are the amount of people they’re sending on the mission.” She nodded and looked over the notes. “I can only imagine that the vegemite means they were in Australia, so whatever special ingredient they add must be where they go.”

“Well, the next sandwich with peanut butter expires next Saturday.” Ashton skimmed over the recipes and pulled the the one in question closer to himself. “It’s peanut butter, more than fifty olives, and brie on rye.” Calum cleared his throat and leaned forward.

“Alright, so Halkrof is going to be in France next Saturday. He’s bringing more than fifty men and he’s planting a bomb. Great.”

“We still have no idea where in France,” Luke shrugged. They looked over at Autumn, who was awfully quiet at their sudden breakthrough. “I get the feeling that Autumn does, though.”

“CHIPA headquarters,” she bit her tongue and took a deep breath. She cracked her knuckles and stood up from the table. “You three stay here and hold down the fort. Calum and I will fly to France and be back before Monday.” 

“Woah, woah, woah, no,” they all stood up and stopped her from leaving.

“You’re crazy if you think you’re going on this without us.” Michael stood up for himself, gesturing to the rest of them. “Luke and I just kicked Calum’s ass when we-”

“That was an airsoft war, Michael. Things are different out there. The biggest threat here is the welts you get from the plastic bullets. Out there, people die.”

“I know that people die,” he shot back, “thirty-three of our stage crew members at the show that was supposed to feed their families for the next few months.” Autumn bit her tongue hard. “No, let’s talk about the fact that Luke’s mom is in the hospital and that-”

“Mike-” Luke reached over and tapped him.

“You don’t understand the risks here.”

“Of course I do, if you could just-”

“Michael, I suggest you drop this right now,” Calum interrupted.

“Teach us how to do this so that nobody else dies. If you just leave us here, you’ll throw yourself into a trap and might end up killing more people.”

“Shit.” Ashton muttered, sitting back down in his chair.

“You want me to train you in how to do this shit?” she spat, feeling the rage starting to bubble up. “Fine.” Calum cringed and sat back down. “Cal, what do you think? You think he should learn the same way that we did?”

“Autumn, I really don’t think-”

“Be in the training room at five. Calum, you give him the basics and make sure he knows what he fucking asked for by the time I get in there.” She put swiped her hand through the data on the table, making it all vanish. “If anyone else wants to join, you’ve got another teacher who might go easy on you.” 

She walked off towards the bedrooms, leaving all four guys confused, terrified, and slightly intrigued. They sat in silence for a few moments before Michael spoke up.

“How screwed am I?” he asked Calum.

“They trained the two of us by putting us with the CHIPA general and telling us ‘if you make it out alive, we’ll give you a gun.’” Calum slapped his shoulder and sighed. “Have fun with that, man.”

“Cal, can you-” Luke started.

“I’m not teaching you. If I walk in there while she’s this pissed, I won’t walk out with all my appendages. You can probably join Michael’s lesson, though.” He bit his lip and glanced between Calum and the hallway that Autumn had disappeared into. “I’m sure she’d love to have another person there.”

“I would love to train with Autumn,” Ashton said as he kicked his feet up on the table, “but I’ve only got one arm, so shut the hell up and fight her since you can.” He crossed his arms and stared up at them.

“Are you seriously going to use that card on us?” Luke asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Ashton nodded simply, then scoffed at their confused looks and stood up. “You seriously don’t see it?”

“You...have a thing for Autumn and want to fight her?” Luke asked hesitantly.

“What the fuck, guys?” He shook his head and walked to their side of the table. “Look at this, okay,” he pulled Luke’s sleeve up and traced his finger around the bone in his shoulder. “When Russian gang dude shot me, he shattered this section of my bone. Not only is it  _ excruciatingly _ painful, but it’s going to take time to heal. A shit-ton of it.” He scanned their faces, hoping to see some kind of realization, but he shook his head when he saw none. “Great. Guys I don’t know when I’ll be able to drum again if at all.” He dropped his hand from Luke’s shoulder and sighed. “Whatever guys, I’m going to bed.”

“Ash-” Calum tried to stop him, but the redhead shook his head and waved him off as he walked down the halls towards his room. It was painfully silent with both Autumn and Ashton gone. Calum rubbed his eyes and looked down at the table. “You two go ahead and go to bed. I’m gonna look through the files one more time just in case we missed anything.” Luke and Michael reluctantly went to bed, leaving Calum hunched over the table, scribbling down notes with a virtual notebook.

Autumn was getting ready for bed, wearing only a sports bra and a pair of shorts and had her hair up in a loose ponytail when she heard a knock on her door. She bit her lip to avoid an outburst, but almost failed when she opened it to find Michael.

“Before you say anything-” he started, raising his hands in surrender, “just know that I’m not just saying this so that you don’t kill me tomorrow-” she raised her eyebrow at him and crossed her arms, “-okay maybe just a little bit, but that’s not the point.” He looked down at the floor and sighed. “This isn’t going well at all is it?”

“No.” 

“Listen, you have to understand that we’ve never been through this before. Everything that we’ve known, it’s been flipped upside-down and we don’t know what the hell is going on half the time.” He paused, biting his lip in thought. “A lot of people that we cared about died that night and you can’t expect us to just sit on the sidelines while you take care of the guys who did this.” She simply blinked at him, not dropping her stern look and she leaned against the doorframe. He did the same, fumbling with his hands as he waited for a response.

“Are you done?”

“Y-Yeah that’s all.” Autumn sighed and pushed the door open. She walked over to her desk and grabbed a hoodie that laid over her chair. As she pulled it on, she turned to see Michael had taken a step into her room, but remained in his place, still waiting for her response.

“I understand.” She zipped her jacket up and shoved her hands in the pockets.

“You...You do?” she nodded.

“Don’t expect me to go easy on you, but yeah. I don’t get why you had to be an ass about it, but-” she chuckled, shaking her head.

“Thanks,” he said with a small smile, letting his arms fall to his sides.

“Alright, now get out of my room. If you’re not in the training room by five, I’ll shoot you.” She shooed him out of the room, smiling smally to herself as she closed the door.

Autumn should have expected the nightmares. Hell, they happened every night. But this time was different. She saw the same bloody scene as always, but now? Instead of the bodies of her fellow agents on the ground, it was that goddamn boy band that she’d been housing for two weeks. All four of them dead, lying at the feet of a laughing man with a scarred face. To say she didn’t get much sleep was an understatement. She woke up the next morning to Lex’s alarm ringing in her ears incessantly at an ungodly hour.

“ _ Good morning, Ms. Young. I’d advise checking on Mr. Hood in the map room. He seems to have gotten ten minutes of sleep total and all he’s consumed in the past eight hours is half a peanut butter sandwich and seven cups of coffee. _ ” Lex advised once Autumn had gotten ready for the training session with Michael. She had left her hair in a loose braid and dressed in her typical workout clothing. Sighing to herself, she walked out of her bedroom and down the halls to find Calum hunched over the table, still displaying all the information on Halkrof. His movements were twitchy and rapid, but clearly exhausted.

“Cal, what are you doing?” she asked softly, not wanting to startle him. It didn’t work. He jumped about three feet in the air and spun around to look at her. “Usually I was the one who stayed up all night researching. How the tables have turned.” He blinked slowly, twice before he shook his head back to reality.

“What? No, I just thought-” he started rifling through the digital files.

“Calum, no, you need to stop,” she walked over and put a hand on his arm, earning a violent flinch. “We know where he’s going next. We have what we need to catch him.” He shook his head quickly.

“No, no, no, you don’t understand,” he rifled through the files again, “the last time this happened, we thought we took him down for good, and we failed.” Autumn furrowed her eyebrows at him as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and ground his teeth. “We failed and we can’t do that again.”

“I know, and we won’t. We have the jump on them this time, and we know what their plan is. All we have to do is-” Calum slammed his fist on the table, making her stop dead in her tracks.

“No! Autumn, you aren’t listening to me!”

“Fine,” she said after a moment. She crossed her arms and hopped up on the table, staring at him intently. “I’m listening.”


	6. It Was Supposed To Be Their Big Break

**December 18, 2013**

**CHIPA Safehouse**

**Underground Tyumen, Russia**

“Agent Hood, Agent Young, I hope you understand the importance of this mission.” Autumn could feel her partner smirking beside her, regardless of the seriousness of the situation. Both agents stood at attention, hands behind their backs and heads held high, facing the large monitor with their director’s stern face displayed.

“Of course, Director Stiles.” Autumn answered professionally. “We’re more than capable of taking down Halkrof once and for all.”

Inside the communications room, the sound echoed off the empty walls of the even emptier room. White metal walls surrounded them, aside from the digital screen in front of them, making the room a whole ten degrees colder than the rest of the safehouse. The two agents wore their typical tactical gear. Black suits with bulletproof armour buckled around their chests, gun holsters on Calum’s waist and Autumn’s thighs, and sheaths for their knives on their calves. Autumn’s blonde hair was wrapped in a loose bun at the base of her neck, and Calum’s black hair had been buzzed short.

“I sincerely hope so.” Stiles said with little emotion. “On Tuesday by dawn you’re expected to have infiltrated Halkrof’s base, secured the hostages, and planted the bomb. You must find a way to get all of the gang members to the center of the base before the bomb goes off, then get out and report back here as soon as it’s done.”

The mission was a big deal, yes, but it was relatively simple. At least, simpler than other missions that the pair had been on. Calum was confident in their abilities, and Autumn was desperate to please Stiles. They were released after debriefing the mission and headed towards their joint dormitory.

“You scared?” Calum asked, breaking the silence as they walked down the halls, past the other CHIPA agents. They flashed their level six clearance badges to the officer guarding the door to the main room and slipped through. “I totally wouldn’t blame you if you were.” He added jokingly.

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes and clipped her badge back to her shirt pocket.

“That’s a yes,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, whatever. I’m more pissed than I am scared.” They walked down the long gray hall, passing a few agents who gave them dirty looks, and stopped at a big metal door. They swiped their cards again and walked inside, finding two simple twin beds on either side of the room and that was it. Calum shut the door behind them and collapsed on his bed with a sigh. “I mean, these people have been rampaging the world for months now, and we’re just now going to take them down?” 

“Babe, we’ve got a few hours to sleep before we have to start this shit. I’d love to complain with you like normal, but if we want to get this right, we have to be rested.” He tucked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles, just staring up at the ceiling. “And I mean, yeah it sucks that we haven’t been able to get them until now, but there’s not much we can do about that. We have the chance now, and I guess that means that we can’t blow it.”

“No pressure,” she scoffed and pulled her hair tie out, letting her blonde locks tumble down her shoulders and releasing the tension in her head. “We’ve been over the plan so many times that I could recite it backwards. Hopefully we don’t fuck it up.” She slipped out of her armour and fell onto her bed, not bothering with the covers.

Regardless of Calum’s advice to sleep, Autumn couldn’t seem to listen to it. A couple dull conversations later, her partner’s soft snores filled the room and she was left to stare up at the ceiling, alone with her thoughts. The amount of things that could go wrong on this mission were unreal. Things could go really wrong and this could be their last mission. Then again, any mission could have been their last.

Calum had been acting strange lately. He constantly talked about what it would have been like if they never joined CHIPA or what would happen if they left. It was...concerning. Autumn had been trained in all forms of fighting, sure, that was a given. What most people didn’t know though was that she was also trained in all things mental and physical health. Either Calum was just facing some existential crisis, or he was debating whether or not his life was meaningful enough. Hopefully it wasn’t the latter, but she had to ask him at some point.

Dreams weren’t all that bad, contrary to popular belief. Mainly because of the intense debriefings and shit that they had to go through, it left little to imagination when it came to dreams. Soon enough, Autumn slipped into a light sleep. Having minimal dreams was efficient. It let her wake up early easily with no obligation to remain asleep.

She shot up from her resting position at a crisp four in the morning, completely alert and ready to move out. The room was dark aside from the thin lines of lights around the edges of the ceiling. Quickly and quietly, she reapplied her body armour and equipped her guns and knives. Once she was done getting ready for the morning, including her basic hygiene in their tiny bathroom, she clapped her hands together to light up the room.

“Up and at ‘em, Cal. We have to get ready to take down a mob boss today,” he groaned softly, then reluctantly got up. Autumn sighed to herself and opened the door, then leaned on the doorframe and glanced back at Calum, who was lying face-first in his pillow with his feet on the floor. “You’d better be at breakfast in ten minutes or I’m telling Jacob to give me his smoke bomb.” He groaned again and stood up just as she slipped into the hallway and let the door slam behind her.

She ran her hands through her hair as she walked down the dimly lit hallway, thankful that most of the other agents were still asleep. She rounded the corner and found the small kitchen, still completely empty. CHIPA didn’t splurge on shit that actually made their lives easier when they weren’t on missions. For example, the kitchen in the safehouse. It was tiny with three black countertops, a mini-fridge, a couple cabinets, and a microwave. Luckily, there was a coffee pot, so at least they had the essentials.

Autumn whipped up a pot of coffee and a toaster pastry, which was expertly prepared in the microwave, then glanced at the clock. “That bastard has three minutes to get out here,” she muttered to herself as she sipped her coffee.

When Calum stumbled into the kitchen drowsily, Autumn had jumped up onto the counter and was watching her watch intently. He did an obnoxious bow to announce his presence, then grabbed a mug from the cabinet to pour his own coffee.

“Why are we up so early again?” he grumbled into his coffee. He leaned against the countertop and peered up at his partner.

“Stiles wants us on the truck out of here by six. We still need to go over the mission again, and preferably get some practice time in before we leave.”

“But four in the morning? Really?” he earned only a nod in response. “Can’t the Russian gang wait to start their illegal activities until at least noon?”

“No rest for the wicked,” she shrugged and jumped down, brutally reminding her that Calum was a good few inches taller than her, even leaned against the counter. “Alright, finish your coffee, maybe get something for breakfast, then meet me in the debriefing room.” She slapped him in the arm lightly, letting her fingers linger for a moment too long on his bicep. Before he could notice though, she slipped out of the kitchen and quietly cursed herself. “Don’t be late!” she called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.

Needless to say, Calum was late. He sauntered into the debriefing room with crumbs on the corner of his mouth and jam-stained hands. Autumn sighed at his appearance and facepalmed.

“I’d like to apologize for my partner. He’s not much of a morning person,” she looked up at the higher-ups with tired eyes, who just looked down their noses at her. Calum slipped into the chair beside her at the end of the table, both of them like ten feet away from the intimidating CHIPA operatives.

The two men were dressed in black suits, each equipped with their own body armour and held gigantic guns on their backs. The taller of the two men, darker skinned and with scars along his face, had his hair buzzed practically down to the skull and looked big enough to take down a literal tank. He was basically Superman. The shorter man had tanned skin and had tattoos that crept up his neck, partially hidden by his collared shirt. His hair was longer, tied back at the base of his neck, and he reminded Autumn of Jason Momoa, strangely.

“I’m sure you both understand the importance of this mission.” Sure, sitting in the same room as Superman and Jason Momoa was irritating in itself with their condescending nature and intimidating guns, but these guys were about to set Autumn off.

“And I’m sure you understand how fucking tired we are of running over the plan. We get the fact that it’s important, alright? Why don’t you just stick us in the goddamn truck, give us our tools, and ship us off to the base?” Calum put a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed him off and kept eye contact with the men. After a moment of hesitation, perhaps just the shock from her sudden boldness, Superman reached down to the floor and pulled up a suitcase, then set it on the table. He slid it across the metal surface, into Calum’s awaiting hands in silence. The case was cool to the touch and was locked electronically. Autumn looked up at the men with furrowed eyebrows. Jason Momoa reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote. He clicked the single button and the case unlocked with a  _ ding _ !

“All the information for the mission is in that case. Clearly you don’t need any more assistance. We’ll call you to the garage when we’re ready for you.” The two men left the room, leaving just Calum and Autumn with a chrome case with ‘Confidential! Don’t touch!’ written all over it.

“Well, I guess we’re in the meat of it now,” Calum opened the case to reveal files and files of information including payment stubs, security camera footage, gang member identifications, and a set of papers that seemed to be encoded. This was a lot more intense than either of them thought.

  
  


“You ready?” Autumn asked Calum, who sat beside her in the truck full of weaponry. She glanced out the window to see the number of caution signs start to increase the closer they got to the base. They were both equipped with their stealth gear, along with their typical tactical gear. They had a couple goals here. Secure the hostages, plant the bomb, get the gang members near the bomb, and explode the base after everyone else gets out. Simple.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he answered just loud enough for her to hear over the harsh conditions outside. It was snowing  _ hard. _ It was going to be nearly impossible to fly out of here on the helicopter like they planned, but maybe things would get better. “Autumn, we need to talk about-” Calum started, but the driver knocked on the dividing door. It slid open to reveal their good friend in CHIPA, Andrew, with a wicked smile on his face.

“Up and at ‘em sweethearts!” he said with a laugh, “y’all better be ready. We’re pulling up to the loading dock in about five minutes.” Autumn nodded and took a breath.

“We’ll talk after, Cal. Just put on your best ‘Russian gang member’ face and make sure nothing is covering your badge,” she reached over and adjusted his gun strap so that his fake badge was revealed. He did the same for her, brushing her hair out of the way and found himself with his hand resting on her jaw. Autumn had been waiting for a moment like this since they met at CHIPA almost five years ago, but something was off. His eyes were sad, less focused than normal.

“Let’s go, lovebirds,” Andrew knocked on the roof and pulled his cloth mask up over the bottom half of his face, “masks on. I’ll be waiting for y’all with the hostages on the roof. Get there fast and with no complications.”

“Stay safe, Drew,” Autumn said with sincerity as she pulled up her own mask.

“Always do, blondie,” he said with a smirk. Calum dropped his hand and pulled his mask up. They pulled up to a gate, still about a mile from the base itself, but crowded with men and women in dark uniforms. Andrew closed the door behind himself, putting the two agents in darkness.

“ _ State your business with Vincent Halkrof _ .” A man asked him in Russian.

“ _ I’m Halkrof’s escort to the rally in Omsk. _ ”

“ _ Bulletproof, tinted windows as requested? _ ” There was a pause, as if Andrew responded silently. “ _ A full sweep of the vehicle is necessary before passage- _ ”

“ _ My orders were to keep the truck on lockdown until Halkrof was present. _ ”

“ _ Who verified this? _ ”

“ _ All of the requests came to me through Aleksandr Petrov. _ ” Autumn smirked at his memory of the files she ran by him before they left. Aleksandr Petrov, according to their intel, was Halkrof’s second in command and most trusted associate. There was a moment of hesitation, but the guard cleared his throat and hit the side of the truck twice.

“ _ The I presume you know how to get where you need to be. _ ”

The truck started moving again abruptly, making them jolt in the back. Soon enough, they halted and there was another knock on the divider. Andrew got out of the car and opened up the back doors of the truck. Normally, Autumn would have been torn to leave the truck, but considering that the truck wasn’t full of  _ their _ equipment, and they gave a Russian guy one hell of a headache to get it, it was easier for her to leave it behind.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” she said to Calum with a smirk. She hopped out of the truck and instantly recognized the garage from the maps that she’d been studying for days. “Cal, you get all the bastards in the middle of the compound, I’ll take the hostages. Tell me when you start the timer.” She tapped the intercom piece in her ear. “And I’ll see you two in the chopper.” She winked at them, then turned around and made her way up towards the back of the garage, where an elevator was placed.

The hostages were held on the third floor in an interrogation room, which was constantly monitored by guards, as well as the security system. Autumn bit her tongue in anticipation as she waited for the doors to open. She stared straight ahead, trying to mimic the guards perfectly. They were practically robots, if she was being honest. They followed orders blindly and walked like perfect little soldiers, completely stripped of their free will. She was shaken out of her thoughts when the elevator dinged and the door slid open, revealing six other guards, all equipped in the exact same clothes and weapons as her.

She gave them a small nod then stepped inside. The doors closed, but they remained still. She glanced over to see one of the guards looking at her. She thought her cover had been blown already, but he simply gestured to the keypad on the wall.

“ _ Floor? _ ”

“ _ Three _ .” She deepened her voice an octave and looked dead ahead again when he pressed the button. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the floor number changed as they went up. Ground. One. Two.  _ Ding! _ The doors slid open and five of the guards stepped out. The same guy who pressed the button for her remained. His hands rested on his gun, ready to snap at a moment’s notice.

“ _ You’ve been placed to guard the hostages, yes? _ ” Autumn nodded. “ _ You must be one of the transfers from the operations in America, _ ” the guy sounded young, mid twenties maybe, “ _ that’s where I was shipped out from. Word is that Halkrof wanted fresh meat. My supervisor said he got tired of the guards who obeyed without question. He said they were boring and lacked challenge. _ ”

Why this guy was trying to start up a conversation with her, she didn’t know. Before he had a chance to start up again, there was a small buzz in her ear.

“ _ Autumn, security is down for the next twenty minutes. _ ” Andrew’s voice rang quietly. “ _ Take out elevator guy, then there’s three more guarding the hostages. Be fast. _ ” With a heavy sigh, she looked up to see that they were progressing to the next floor quickly.

“ _ Sorry kid, you seem sweet, _ ” she pulled her gun out of its holster and knocked him over the head with it, making him crumple to the floor. The elevator dinged a moment later and she tucked her gun back into the holster. Walking to the interrogation rooms, she knocked out every guard that got in her way, managing to get away with keeping all of them alive. 

She barged in through the wooden door and found five people lined up along the wall. All of them were cuffed to the ceiling, just high enough so their feet brushed the floor. They were beaten up, bloody, and weak. She rushed forward to them and checked all of their pulses. All were still alive, but their heart rates were dangerously slow.

“Five total,” she said into her earpiece, “three men, two women, all with extremely low heart rates and seemingly unconscious. I don’t know if I can get them all up to the roof in time.” She bit her lip and looked around the room. There was nothing here but a single wooden chair.

She pulled out a small device and made her way over to the hostages. All of them were people of power in America. The Secretary of State, the Vice President, the founder of the biggest shipping company in the world, a big actress, and the owner of a large bank. She placed the device on the first pair of handcuffs, then clicked the green button. Every mechanism in the cuffs failed and the Secretary of State fell into Autumn’s arms.

“Mrs. Secretary, can you walk?” she held her up by the forearms once she realized she was still conscious. When the answer didn’t come, Autumn gripped her tighter to grab her attention. “Ma’am, we need to move fast. Can you walk?” After a moment of hesitation, the woman nodded. “Perfect. Stay calm for me, and help me keep them up while I free their hands, alright?” She snapped all of the cuffs, then helped them all to the hallway. “Stay behind me. No matter what happens, you all need to get to the helicopter on the roof.”

“ _ Bomb planted, _ ” Calum’s voice came over the earpiece, “ _ Everyone is in the center of the building, ready for it to blow. Autumn, can you get to the roof in time? _ ” She bit her tongue, millions of thoughts running through her head.

“When the hell is our backup getting here?” she grumbled as she loaded all of them into the elevator. “I’m about five minutes from getting there. Drew, you got it ready?” She clicked the button inside and waited for his answer.

“ _ Get up here and I’ll sort out my end of the deal, got it? _ ”

“I’m sending the hostages up.” She said at the sound of footsteps down the hallway. “I think our cover’s been blown.” She glanced down at the floor of the elevator to see that the boy from before was gone. “Shit.” She reached into the elevator and clicked the button with the highest number with the word ‘roof’ plastered beside it. “There’s a helicopter waiting for you. I’ll meet you up there.” She grabbed one of her guns from her thigh and handed it to the actress. “Use this if you have to, and don’t be seen.” The doors closed, leaving her with the image of all the hostages absolutely terrified. The footsteps behind her got louder. She took a deep breath and reached for her extra gun, but found the holster empty. “Dammit.”

“ _ Halkrof has been waiting for you _ .” A voice spoke behind her. She simply sighed and turned around slowly. She rested her hands on her hips at the sight of three guards, each armed with large guns, all pointed at her.

“ _ I guess that means he wants me alive then? _ ” She smirked as the cold knives against her calves seemed to warm up. “ _ Hate to break it to him, but my heart belongs to another. _ ” Just then, three gunshots rang through the hallway and all three guards dropped dead. Standing before her was her knight in tactical armour.

“You need to stop getting yourself in situations like this. I won’t be here to save you forever.” Calum reprimanded as he reached down to take one of the guards’ guns.

“I could have handled it myself.” She rolled her eyes and caught the gun that he tossed to her.

“We’ll see about that,” he scoffed.

“ _ Would you dumbasses stop flirting and get the hell up here? You forget that I’m not trained to fight like you are. _ ” Drew complained, snapping them out of their moment of hesitation. They both took off towards the stairs, taking two at a time as they made it up to the roof.

“What’s the status on the bomb?” Autumn asked as they ran.

“I rigged it. We’re remotely detonating it as soon as we get out.” Calum answered, slightly out of breath. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Shut up, Hood.” She rolled her eyes and slammed through the door to the roof, sending it to the ground in splinters. They arrived just in time to see Andrew loading the hostages onto the helicopter. “Step on it, Drew!” Autumn shouted as they ran closer. Guards had gathered right behind them on the stairs. Calum had spun around and shot at them, but without a proper angle, their body armour made it impossible to get in any good hits. Andrew scurried into the pilot’s seat and lifted the copter up off the ground by a few feet.

Autumn jumped up first, hooking her arm around the landing skids. She aimed at the guards and shot. One. Two. Three dropped dead courtesy of the bullets she buried in their brains. Calum took this as a chance to jump up and grab onto the landing skids as well. They fired off shots at the guards until the roof slowly disappeared into the fog of the storm. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a remote-looking device. Without hesitation, he clicked the button and dropped the remote. 

The entire warehouse went up in flames. People screamed as the supports collapsed and the building caved in, making all seven of the floors converge into a single destroyed one. Autumn clenched her teeth and let out a breath she didn’t know that she’d been holding. They both still hung over the icey forest, speechless. In a moment of silence, Calum started laughing. It was small at first, but extremely contagious. Sure, it was freezing cold, a bunch of people had just died, and both agents had been injured, they simply laughed. Maybe it was deliriousness or the lack of sleep, but things were finally looking up.

“You crazy motherfuckers!” Andrew called from the cockpit. Autumn calmed herself, then pulled herself up into the helicopter. Her partner did the same and they both fell to their knees once they closed the door, shielding them from the intense cold.

“We did it,” Calum said with a small smile.

“Did you ever doubt that we would? We’re the perfect team.” The blonde chuckled and reached up to touch his face, now supporting a pretty decent cut along his jaw. He flinched at the contact, but softened and gazed down at her.

“Autumn, we need to talk,” he said after a second. The fact that she was smiling at him like  _ that _ just made this harder.

“Oh yeah, we got cut off in the truck.”

“There’s no easy way to say this,” he said quietly, making her furrow her eyebrows, “Autumn, this was my last mission.” Her expression remained the same, but he could practically see her contemplating in her eyes.

“I...what?” He put his hand over hers, which was still resting on his jaw.

“I’m resigning from CHIPA.” She took a second to process, then dropped her hand from his face and sat back on her heels. “I can’t do this spy shit forever, babe. I want a chance at a normal life. I want to go back home and join my friends in this band they’re putting together.” She simply blinked at him. “And you can come with me,” he took her hands, which rested in her lap and stared into her eyes pleadingly, “we could start a life together as normal people who don’t carry weapons with them all the time.”

On one hand, he was saying everything that she’d ever wanted to hear. Starting a life together? Normal? No. That wasn’t possible, not for them. Autumn pulled her hands away and hesitated to say anything. After a moment, she stood up and walked towards the cockpit. She paused her walk to look back at him, still sitting on the floor, frozen.

“I’ll call Stiles and tell her we’re on our way. Check on the hostages.” She bit her lip and slipped behind the curtain and into the co-pilot seat beside Andrew. He glanced at he, concerned, but kept his eyes on the sky. “I guess it’s just you and me now, Drew.” She said softly as she dialed her director on the device she’d pulled from her pocket.

“Cal didn’t want-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She set the device on the panel in front of her and waited for the signal to connect. It dinged and the light turned red. An image of herself reflected back at her and a small timestamp was counting in the corner. “Mission report. December 18, 2013. Halkrof’s base of operations has been eliminated, and he is believed to be dead along with his top associates. Five American hostages secured. Estimated time of arrival to CHIPA safehouse in Tyumen is approximately four and a half hours.”

In an awkward, tired silence, they flew back to the safehouse. Everything was going to change.


End file.
